Off on a tangent!

Nearly Halloween, the time when the Family welcomes all and sundry into their home and enjoys much hilarity and fun.
The boys have 10 days off school. That snuck up on us I can tell you....how is it almost halloween and half term already? It's been all cool and crisp, windy and autumnal. England is so much better at the whole halloween lets have fun thing, well I think it is. The shops say it is because they go a bit crazy and sell all kinds of ghoulish things, I still don't think we quite get it like the Americans do. I'm not sure we do trick or treating yet, this year we live right in the midst of civilisation and opposite the clampetts ( who we haven't invited how unchristian of us!)
People don't decorate over here so I'm not at all sure what happens to all the ghastly spooky decorations that appear to fly off the shelves, maybe they put them up secretly and whip them down again before Nov 1st.
I know that I plan to start decorating our house on monday and hope to take all week about it.
I have the most impressive black light you ever did see, I bought it on ebay 2 years ago, Dan picked it up for me and it has been at his house ever since. I got it when we went to the hotel last week, it is SO great! In celebration of such a marvellous thing, I have bought black light cream for the boys faces ( they want to be bandaged up with stumps and be rotting mummies) we have a plethora of glow in the dark hanging things, the plan is that we make the hallway, up the stairs and Seth's room very spooky and our front room will be all orange and glowing for scared people to gather. It has been great in years past that loud and crazy children go and do whatever they do, eat and make a mess, while civilised people sit in the cosy and glowing sitting room and make pleasant conversation. I hope it works that way again this year.
The boys took 25 invites to school and we also invite neighbours ( some, not all, we do not love all our neighbours, gosh must be human and not quite perfect, we should work on that, maybe if we move again to where we have nice neighbours maybe. ) We invite everyone from church and usually quite a lot of people come. I love it, more when it's over and I see what fun we had and how it brings so many of us together. Too often, we are charging through our lives doing all these important things and we forget what is really important, which is to enjoy each other, to laugh, just be friends and forget the daily nonsense. Once a year we get to do that.
I have to come up with some short activities for the younger kids ( the bigger ones usually just love to go and run about like lunatics and spray silly string, eat and make ungodly amounts of noise)
I want to make some great food, I can't afford to go quite as mad as I usually do ( and have the bakery make green bread rolls...that was fun!) but I really would love to make some fabulous finger food. Last year we had people from church bring a plate of goodies which worked out really well and I shall certainly encourage that again! I love that whenever you invite church people to any kind of gathering they feel obliged to bring food, such great food too, mostly homemade and completely delicious and also usually far too much and oh, shame, we have to eat it for days afterwards.
I am so excited to start decorating, we have some great stuff, I always hit the supermarkets the say after halloween and buy a stack more decorations ready for the next year, paying pennies for it all. I love that it is all packed away in the attic and I can't remember what we have exactly, when we bring it down it's such fun to find things and decide where to put it all. I am even more excited about Christmas decorations, we have about 9 Rubbermaid boxes filled with various decorations. I am looking forward to buying more christmas ones when Sophie and I go away ( in 6 weeks! )
Speaking of our trip, how depressing that when I went in June, the exchange rate was incredible, nearly $2 for every £1, this time it is sadly less exciting, I paid £168.38 for $250 today...pptttttthhhhhh! It seems to be going down every day too, maddening as I have to change the money as we get it....I hope it doesn't go down too much more.
I do love that petrol has gone down drastically in price though, 96p a litre right now, it was £1.19. Gah! Just remembered I have to tax the car in another week too.....I don't resent it too much though because I still love my car, I really do I have even cleaned it every week..yes you heard me right EVERY week! Inside and out, all clean and shiny, I want to keep that lovely smell. Whenever I go shopping and I walk back to the car and see it all shiny and high up, I get a happy feeling. I am so easily pleased.
I've been a bit 'off ' as far as blogging goes lately, I just can't quite seem to get on with it or flow. I hope it's a temporary glitch because I love writing here, maybe it's because things are going pretty well, whilst that is fabulous it makes for incredibly dull reading, it's hard to be deep and meaningful when life is ticking by quite nicely. I have had some stuff going on in my head but honestly.....I'm bored with it myself, more and more I just think I am better off just shutting up and getting on with it. So that's what I am doing, so far it works. H is weird lately which always throws me right off. I hate it when he is sullen and won't say why. He is really quiet and somewhat withdrawn and of course I second guess why he is like this, get it wrong and he becomes even more sullen. Why he can't just open his mouth and say what is bothering him is beyond me and makes me SO cross!
We've been married 9 years next month, that flew by! It's hard to remember a time without him but when I look back at how blindly we made such a huge decision it is terrifying! I am so glad we did, life isn't half bad and I can't even begin to imagine where I would be or what I would be doing if I hadn't met H. I wonder if I would still be in Cornwall, oh my what a life that would be. What would my big kids be doing? Our lives would be so drastically different without H and the little boys. I think I would feel so old if I didn't have this new family...thank goodness for the internet!